Barranquenho

Barranquenho (Barranquenhu; English: Barranquian^[1]), is a Romance linguistic variety spoken in the Portuguese town of Barrancos, near the Spanish border. It can be considered a variety of Portuguese (Alentejan Portuguese) heavily influenced by the dialects of neighbouring areas in Spain in Extremadura and Andalusia (especially those from Encinasola and Rosal de la Frontera),^[2] or a Spanish dialect (Extremaduran / Andalusian) heavily influenced by Portuguese.

There is controversy not only regarding whether it is primarily a Spanish or Portuguese language but also about whether it is a mixed language or a transitional language. Barranquian is not intelligible to speakers of either Standard Portuguese nor to speakers of Standard Spanish. Barranquian speakers say that they speak neither Spanish nor Portuguese but a third language altogether different. It is probably best described as a mixture between Old Low Extremaduran (Asturo-Leonese) and Alentejan Portuguese.^{[citation needed]} Ethnologue lists Barranquian as a dialect of Extremaduran, even though the areas where Extremaduran proper is spoken are quite far from Barrancos, and other sources do not support this link.

The development of this mixed language seems to be relatively recent (in the past 200 years), unlike other minority linguistic varieties in the Iberian Peninsula which have medieval roots.

References[edit]

See also[edit]

• Iberian languages
• Languages of Portugal
• Languages of Spain
• Iberian Romance languages

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